1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the configuration and method of manufacturing an electronic device. More particularly, this invention relates to a new configuration and method of manufacturing a miniaturized voltage control oscillator by multiple-layered micro-strips wherein simple manufacture steps can be employed to increase or decrease the frequency without impacting other electrical performance characteristics.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Once an electronic device is manufactured with all the circuit elements connected according to certain design with specific predefined configuration, there is generally very little flexibility to change the performance characteristics by changing the interconnected circuit elements. Difficulties often arise when fine-tuning of the performance characteristics is still necessary to satisfy the design specification. The results of the performance tests conducted on the "finished product" of the device may not entirely conform to the requirements demanded by the specification. Furthermore, performance characteristics are often altered as the results of variations of size, dimensions, statistical variations of functional parameters of the circuit elements or due to changes of the conditions of the manufacture processes. The demand for fining tuning and adjustment is necessary to overcome these uncertainty and unpredictability in the manufacture processes. One specific adjustment is related to the fine-tuning of the frequency of a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). Simple and convenient methods without significant alternation to the configuration of the oscillator is required to provide voltage control oscillator (VCO) at reasonably low production cost while maintaining high degree of reliability for a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) manufactured with improved miniaturized configurations.
In a co-pending patent application filed by the Applicants of this invention, an improved circuit configuration is disclosed to miniaturize a voltage-controlled oscillator. In order to reduce the size of an oscillator an improved inductor must be provided. An inductor incorporated in an oscillator by applying a surface mounted device (SMD) technology provides the advantage of size-reduction. However, the manufacture process implemented with a SMD technology is more expensive and causes the production of the oscillator to increase. Therefore, a new configuration with multiple layers of conductive micro-strips is disclosed in the co-pending Application to provide an inductor employed in the VCO. Thus, the new VCO significantly reduces the size, the thickness and the weight of the electronic device. Meanwhile, an oscillator produced with simplified manufacturing processes with high reliability at low cost is disclosed in the co-pending application Ser. No. 09/089,269 filed on Jun. 2, 1998. However, after completion of the manufacturing processes, a fine tuning to adjust the oscillator's frequency is still required due to variations of circuit parameters as discussed above.
Therefore, an improved device configuration and manufacturing process is still required to simplify the process of fine-tuning for frequency adjustment operations. This simplified frequency adjustment process must be provided without significantly change the configuration of the circuit connections of the oscillator. It is further desirable that the simplified frequency adjustment processes can be carried out without requiring expensive equipment or complicated test procedures such that the production processes can be conveniently carried out using significantly less time to further reduce the production cost of the assembled systems.